


Set My Sights On The Setting Sun

by Lilsciencequeen



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Fluff, Guilt, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Panic Attacks, Post-Season/Series 04, Season 5 spec
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-15
Updated: 2017-07-15
Packaged: 2018-12-02 12:50:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,132
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11509791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lilsciencequeen/pseuds/Lilsciencequeen
Summary: Post Season 4 and possible Season 5 Spec with FitzSimmons talking through things and Mama May.





	Set My Sights On The Setting Sun

**Author's Note:**

> There are mentions of panic attacks and vomit.

The oxygen was too pure, too clean and it was burning her lungs, leaving her unable to breathe. She couldn’t help but find the irony in it; the one gas that was needed to stay alive was something that was leaving her unable to breath. Slowly suffocating her.

The gravity was all wrong too, it was too strong, throwing her off balance and despite the amount of times she had complained, their capturers had dismissed her, waving her off. They told her she didn’t know anything, that she had qualifications in biochemistry not astronomy. They also reminded her that she was a prisoner, sent here to work and that she had no say in how the base was run and that if she didn’t keep her mouth shut there would be consequences.

Not that she did work anyway.

She had been here for over a week already, and had not once left her room, spending most of the time curled up in the bed, buried under the blankets with her back to the window. Those in charge of the lab had tried to get her to leave but every time they failed. Eventually they had stopped, and she wondered what May and Coulson had done or said for that to have occurred.

Those who had captured them, a shady government organisation with letters for a name, thought that she was just being difficult, throwing a tantrum and protesting at being here. But she wasn’t. They didn’t know what had happened to her. About her time on Maveth, and how being here, it sent her back into that dark place in her mind, where all she wanted to do was curl up and sleep while waiting for the pain to be over.

The first time she had stepped into her room, the blinds of the window up, showing the vastness of space, the never ending forever, she had taken a panic attack. The shock of being in space, of being so very far away from home again had just been too much for her and had overwhelmed her. Her breath had caught in her throat, leaving her unable to breath, further panicking her and her stomach twisted into tight painful knots.

She had vague memories of being guided to the bathroom and throwing up into the toilet, a reassuring hand rubbing her back, a soothing voice in her ear. Once she had finished, spitting out the last remaining bits of bile in her mouth, the vile aftertaste remaining, the person who had come with her into the bathroom, so kind and gentle, used a damp washcloth, slightly warm, to wipe her face clean.

She had been conflicted about it; hating that someone was helping her, treating her like she was incapable of doing anything herself, and she was angry at herself for being like this but it was nice, it was so very nice that someone was doing it for her, helping her through this so she wasn’t stumbling through the dark, lost and alone.

“Are you okay?” the voice asked once they were done cleaning her face. It was May. Of course it was May. Who else could it have been?

She looked up at them then, her eyes wide, brimming with tears. She had no words, no voice, as if it had been stolen. So she had shaken her head, dropping her gaze and refusing to meet May’s eyes any longer. The first tears started to fall, making tracks down her faces and landing on the tiles of the floor, so cold that they had caused her legs to go numb.

“That’s okay,” the older woman had offered instead, and wrapped one of her arms around Jemma’s waist and the other under her legs and lifted her up into her arms. Jemma’s head had fallen instinctively onto May’s chest and she allowed it to rest there as May had carried her from the bathroom and back into the main part of her bunk. Someone had shut the shutters and still to this day, Jemma didn’t know who it had been. She thought if it wasn’t May, it must have been Daisy. It seemed like very Daisy thing to do.

Once having carried her to the bed, May had laid her down on it, wrapping her in the blankets, and lying down next to her, holding her as the terrors of the night enveloped her, wrapped their tentacles around her.

She had hardly slept that night, waking every time she had fallen into a deep sleep, the nightmares causing her to wake up screaming and kicking but May was there, May was always there, soothing her hair. She didn’t once ask what the nightmares had been about, something that Jemma was glad off. She didn’t even know where she would have begun; there was just too much. So every time she had awoken, refusing to sleep again, May just held her until sleep did claim her and the process repeated again and again and again.

In the days since that first day, she had either spent the nights with May or Daisy or alone. It all depended on what she had wanted (though the night’s Daisy had stayed, she had little say in whether she was sleeping alone, her friend not wanting to leave her alone). They also brought her from the food from the canteen three times a day, tasteless gruel that she normally brought up again if she did manage to eat it in the first place.

She knew that the team would be worrying about her but she couldn’t bring herself to leave her room, to leave her bed. She didn’t know what was out there, what was beyond the confinement of these four walls and she didn’t want to know. If she lay here, if she just lay here, she could imagine that she wasn’t stranded in some distant solar system, light years away from home; she could imagine that she was back on Earth, back in her bunk in the Playground.

Though Fitz was missing.

He hadn’t come by to see her since they had been taken from the diner and she knew that he was also suffering, that he would be needing her and she hated herself for not going to see him, which just made everything so much worse for her. She knew she needed time to adjust to this change, to help sort out her thoughts and feelings but she hated that she wasn’t helping Fitz, that she was stuck here, feeling pathetic and sorry for herself. It was such a vicious cycle that she was stuck in. She knew she had to break it, and after ten days she still hadn’t.

It was on the eleventh day that it broke, Jemma still wrapped up in the blankets, having spent the night alone. Fitz’s hoodie was starting to smell less and less like him. She wanted to get up, to change into one that did still smell like him but it was if she and the bed had become one, as though it were impossible to see where one ended and the other began. It wasn’t even that comfortable of a bed but she still couldn’t bring herself to leave it, it was just too much for her at the moment. She was still adjusting.

There was a knock on the door, jolting her out of her thoughts and back into the real world. She couldn’t help the groan that escaped her; she knew that it would probably be May, Daisy, Elena or even Coulson, someone bringing her food to eat. But she didn’t want food, her stomach was churning, and she knew that if she even tried to eat, she would spend the next number of minutes sitting on the cold tiles of the bathroom. The knock came again, and there was something familiar about her knock and she tried to fight the fog in her mind to place where she knew it.

“Come in,” she called out, her voice muffled and hidden by the blankets.

“Jemma.” The voice that spoke her name was a soft lilt, her name a low murmur, as though it were a breath. And she supposed it could be called that, her name was a natural to him as breathing was. She rolled over, sitting up, and tried to ignore the wave of dizziness that washed over her, spinning the very world in front of her. He made his way over to the bed, trying not to run, she could just tell it, that he was fighting every instinct, forcing every muscle not to run.

He wrapped his arms around her, pulling her into a hug and she sank into it, sank into him, burying her face in his chest. Sobs overtook her, ripping through her as she took him in, took in everything about him.

“I’m okay,” he whispered into her ear, his breath hot against her ear. “I’m so sorry.”

“No.” Her voice was muffled by his clothes. “No, you’ve nothing to be sorry for.”

“I should have come sooner, but I needed… I was working through things. Daisy… she was helping me. And maybe, maybe everything wasn’t my fault but…” he trailed off, losing his words and trail of thought. “It’s going to take time, but I’m going to get there.” There was a fiery determination in his voice as if he really meant it. As if he was determined to fight this and Jemma couldn’t help the proud swelling in her chest upon hearing there words. He reached and tilted her head up so that he could meet her eyes.

And she met his, taking in his features, taking in everything about him; his eyes, soft and blue, a twinkle of life in them; he didn’t seem to have shaven in a while, his stubble evident; and his hair had grown out again, his curls fluffy. All she wanted to do was run her hands through it but she knew that it wasn’t an appropriate time. He smiled down at her, the edges of his lips curving up. He reached up and wiped away her tears with his thumb, rough and calloused after years of burns and cuts. But it was so comforting. It was home.

“I’m sorry, I should have seen you earlier.” She tried to be strong, she had to be strong for him, and for herself as well but found that she couldn’t, her voice wavering.

He shook his head. “No, no. We needed this time apart. Time to recover. We can’t help each other if we…” He shook his head again, not finishing his thought because he knew that Jemma would know what he was taking about.

She let out a short breath through the nose, leaning in close to him again, burying her face in his shirt, taking in his scent and wrapping her arms around him. Her fingers grabbed onto his shirt, a vice like grip. He wrapped his arms around her also, a comforting embrace that was home.

“I don’t wanna be here,” she whispered.

He pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “Daisy, Coulson, they’re figuring out something. We’re gonna get home.”

“We are?”

“Yeah, we are.”

“Please don’t leave me.” Jemma pulled out of his hug again, looking up at him. “Fitz, our future, our future isn’t dead.”

“You saw that?” he asked.

She nodded. “I saw everything. I love you Fitz. I love you more than anything or anyone. I don’t… I don’t blame you for the Framework, for the LMDs, for anything that happened.”

“I can still hear your scream…”

“No, please, don’t blame yourself. That wasn’t you. That was never you.”

“I’m trying,” came his voice. “I’m trying.” He moved the two of them so that they were lying down on the bed, curled up together and facing each other. He ran his hand down her face, the back of his fingers tracing her features and committing them to his memories. Not that he needed to, he had spent so many years with her that he already knew them off by heart. “It’ll take time…”

“I know, and I’m going to be here, okay? I’m going to be here for you every step of the way, no matter what.”

He leaned in closer to her, his lips gracing hers. She sank into the kiss, soft and tender. It was full of love, full of promise, full of hope for the future.

She was hesitant to pull away, but eventually they did and he reached over, pushing a strand of hair that had fallen onto her face back behind her ear. “We’re going to be okay,” she whispered. “Because we’re going to get through this, like we’ve done everything before…”

“Together.”

**Author's Note:**

> I just love Mama May but if you want more pain, I now HC that it was her who killed Jemma in the Framework, so her comforting Jemma is a way of telling herself that Jemma is okay..
> 
> Feel free to leave a comment to let me know what you think! Thanks for taking the time to read and I hope you enjoyed this!


End file.
